The present invention relates to a padlock, particularly to a padlock that can be operated by either the key or the cipher, and has an interchangeable lock cylinder.
The padlock is the commonest lock used in the life. The padlock in the prior art may be generally unlocked with the key or the cipher. The latter is commonly called a combination lock. The traditional key-operated lock usually comprises a housing, a shackle, a lock body, a lock cylinder disposed in the lock body, slide pins arranged on the lock cylinder and lock body, a spring bolt disposed within the lock body. A key is used to drive the lock cylinder and hereby acts on the spring bolt to open the lock. The conventional combination lock comprises a housing, shackle, a lock body, a code mechanism including numeral wheels disposed in the lock body, a spring bolt acted on by the code mechanism. The combination lock can be unlocked when the numeral wheels are turned to a predetermined sequence. The problem of the key-operated lock is that people often lose the key, and that of the combination lock is that the users tend to forget the predetermined code. Therefore, it is desirable to create a lock that can be operated by either the key or the cipher. However, such a lock has not been disclosed in the art.
Therefore, the present invention is to provide a new padlock that can be operated either by the key or by the cipher.
The padlock according to the present invention comprises a shackle having a long leg, a short leg, and two bolt recesses respectively disposed at the long leg and the short leg; a housing having two shackle holes to allow the shackle passing therethrough; a lock body having a first sidewall, a second sidewall, and a first shackle groove for receiving the long leg of the lock shackle, and a second shackle groove for receiving the short leg of the lock shackle; a lock bolt mechanism disposed at the upper portion in the lock body, including a spring and two blocks connected to the two ends of the spring; a lock cylinder assembly disposed at the middle portion in the lock body, comprising a cylinder housing, a lock cylinder disposed through the cylinder housing, a key receiving recess extended axially and inwardly for receiving a first key, and a drive pin connected to the portion of the lock cylinder out of the cylinder housing; and a combination lock assembly.
The combination lock assembly comprises a fork mechanism having a fork lever and a plurality of plates parallel to the fork lever, fastened to the second sidewall by a fastening spring; a wheel mechanism comprising a plurality of numeral wheels, each numeral wheel being disposed between two adjacent plates; and a clutch mechanism disposed within the wheel mechanism, including a clutch shaft and a plurality of rotatable clutch sleeves disposed on the clutch shaft, each clutch sleeve including a disc perpendicular to the clutch shaft. Each disc has a plane at the rim in matching with the plate.
When the padlock is locked, the two blocks of the lock bolt mechanism are engaged with the bolt recesses of the shackle and the fork lever is positioned between the two blocks.
When the first key inserted into the key receiving recess is turned, the drive pin drives the fork lever to move outwards so that the two blocks move to the center of the spring by pressing the shackle downwards to unlock the padlock.
When the numeral wheels are turned to a predetermined sequence, all the planes of the discs are positioned at the same plane and contact the plates of the fork mechanism, the fork lever moves outwards by the action of the drive spring so that the two blocks can move to the center of the spring by pressing the shackle downwards to unlock the padlock.
In an embodiment of the lock body of the invention, the lock body defines two protrusions extended longitudinally for matching two recesses by the fork mechanism at its outside correspondingly, so that the fork mechanism can rotate round the protrusions to ensure the fork lever to move outwards.
In the present invention, the padlock may include a means for resetting a new cipher. The means comprises a second key that can drive the clutch shaft moving backwards so that the new cipher can be reset by turning the numeral wheels.
In an embodiment of the combination lock assembly, it may further comprise a reed mechanism. The reed mechanism includes a connecting member fastened to the second sidewall and a plurality of reeds perpendicular to the connecting member. Each reed contacts the upper rim of a numeral wheel so that the numeral wheel can only turn one number once.
In one preferred embodiment of the present invention, the lock body defines a screw hole extended obliquely and downwards from the second shackle groove to engage with a connecting groove positioned at the surface of the cylinder housing. A connecting screw is inserted into the screw hole and the connecting groove to fix the lock cylinder assembly to the lock body.
The padlock of the present invention may further comprise a bottom cover to match the housing of the padlock. In this case the outer rim of the numeral wheel exceeds the bottom cover.